There are spoilers here. I am too lazy to look up the LJ cut, so if you don't want to be spoiled, skip this entry and read whatever loser is below mine. :P (Just kidding about the loser thing.)

First, I want to give OTP love. Except I don't think I can. Kagami announced that Himiko was his and took her away, but this wasn't the romance shipping moment I was looking for. Especially since, from what I gathered, Himiko was catatonic at the time and about half of the team disappeared with them. Now, I'll admit that the entire time I have been a Kagami x Himiko shipper I have never thought "OMG their love is so romantic". More over I was expecting a lot of teasing/vying for dominance on both their parts until Kagami's untimely death, preferably while trying to save her. (Yay shounen manga clichés!) I have never lost sight of one thing in my experience shipping them: Kagami's a bastard, and 90% of his interest in Himiko is because she almost beat him in a fight. They aren't cute, sweet, or romantic. If Kagami has any genuine love for her, he keeps it well hidden under his silliness and assholishness. If they are going to get together in any way, shape, or form it will take a lot of work on both of their parts, and I don't think either one are in the "single and looking" camp right now. But I digressed from what I was originally going to say, and that was I wanted a sweeping dramatic Kagami x Himiko moment and I got it.

Moving on, the Voodoo Children! Such a lovely little bundle of fun that situation is. Between having the souls of aborted children (yay Catholicism! No, seriously, the witches in GB are Catholic), their mirrors that want to kill everyone they ever loved (although so far I am kinda liking Himiko's mirror), their role as sacrifices on behalf of Ban's family...and now they are saying Himiko is actually a member of Ban's family, and that Ban's grandmother is a "traitor" to her lineage for siding with the Voodoo Children instead of fighting against them. (As for the relation, it's probably distant. I'd use that as an arguement against Ban x Himiko, but I'm a Fruits Basket fan.) So what can of worms was opened for the Voodoo Children now? Well, one I actually like for a change: Himiko is a "key", who is supposed to open "Heaven's Door" for Ban's grandmother. The characters seemed to take this to mean Himiko is the one who is supposed to kill the Witch Queen (and we now know she shares blood with her). Unlike other members of Ban's family, who rally against the Voodoo Children, Ban's grandmother seems ready to embrace this fate. (Maria said she wasn't allowed to say anything else because she promised Ban's grandmother at this point.) There was also an interesting detail: Himiko being a Voodoo Child is "not supposed to make her a sacrifice, but a true hero". That nearly made my heart sing. I know Himiko has been getting both physically and emotionally stronger as the manga goes on, and I love it, but she's still strictly been in the "doing what I have to because I have to" mercenary-like camp (after all, when she tried to play hero someone else she cared for died. See the famous/infamous Shido x Madoka arc whose name currently escapes me :P).

And apparently Ban and Himiko have ties to Mugenjyou. To which I say "HA HA! I was right! You all owe me a cookie!". Because of all of this info I now have hope that Himiko will survive the arc, or if she does die it will be in a great blaze of glory.

I hope this makes sense to my flist, because I am not entirely sure it makes sense to me yet. The GB manga is generally confusing to me lately (the person translating it says it's easier with the pictures there, but then she said "okay, maybe not").

Oh, and non-Himiko related: we finally got to see Paul's eyes. He has a cross in one of them like Teshimine does. This, of course, means Paul is teh cool. And I am with a few other people on the GB comm: him and Der Kaiser probably had the buttsex way back when. :P (Okay, probably not, and I don't care either way. I just wanted an excuse to write "Der Kaiser" and "buttsex" in the same sentence.)